A.E. Housman (1859-1936)

A. E. Housman fell in love and was rejected by Moses Jackson, a fellow student, prompting him to write the poems that would be published in 1896, at his own expense, as The Shropshire Lad. Twenty-six years later, when Jackson was dying in Canada, Housman published a second volume, Last Poems, which he wanted Jack to see. By then Housman was a great scholar of Latin poetry, living alone, the last in a long line of maiden aunts as his friends called him. George Orwell later said Housman wrote with a bitter, defiant paganism, and a conviction that life is short and the gods are against us.

Into My Heart an Air that Kills

Immortal Poets: Their Lives and Verse, by Christopher Burns